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I have been defending Israel's right to exist, and to defend itself against terrorism, for many years-on college campuses, in television appearances and in debate.

Alan Dershowitz

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Alan Dershowitz
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: September 1
Lawyer
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Brooklyn
New York
Alan M. Dershowitz
Alan Morton Dershowitz
Appearance
Campuses
Israel
Appearances
Exist
Campus
College
Defending
Television
Defend
Right
Terrorism
Many
Years
Debate

More quotes by Alan Dershowitz

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Hypocrisy is not a way of getting back to the moral high ground. Pretending you're moral, saying your moral is not the same as acting morally.
Alan Dershowitz
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I tell my students, if you ever become comfortable with your role as criminal defense lawyer, it's time to quit. It should be a constant source of discomfort, because you're dealing with incredible moral ambiguity, and you've been cast into a role which is not enviable.
Alan Dershowitz
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When you discriminate against anyone, you discriminate against everyone. It's a display of terrible intolerance.
Alan Dershowitz
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I was a Jewish rabbinical student for 12 years, and studied the Bible all the time.
Alan Dershowitz
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Asymmetrical warfare is a euphemism for terrorism, just like collateral damage is a euphemism for killing innocent civilians.
Alan Dershowitz
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I've written important articles on prevention, on the concept of the preventive state, how the law is moving much more in an area of trying to prevent wrongs than trying to deal with them after they occur. That will be my academic/intellectual legacy.
Alan Dershowitz
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There are many levels of truth.
Alan Dershowitz
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I think that lawyers are terrible at admitting that they're wrong. And not just admitting it also realizing it. Most lawyers are very successful, and they think that because they're making money and people think well of them, they must be doing everything right.
Alan Dershowitz
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The first rule for escaping prison in the United States is always having someone more important than yourself to incriminate.
Alan Dershowitz
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I never place limits on the potential success of my students. If they're going into acting, they're going to win the Oscar... If they're going into law, they're going to be chief justice.
Alan Dershowitz
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Good character consists of recognizing the selfishness that inheres in each of us and trying to balance it against the altruism to which we should all aspire. It is a difficult balance to strike, but no definition of goodness can be complete without it.
Alan Dershowitz
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No country in the history of the world has ever contributed more to humankind and accomplished more for its people in so brief a period of time as Israel has done since its relatively recent rebirth in 1948.
Alan Dershowitz
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I love to play. I love, opera, hiking and museums. The one thing I don't do is sit. I have a tremendous amount of energy.
Alan Dershowitz
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That's when civil liberty suffers - when we think special times justify the diminution of civil liberties. And I'm not going to accept that.
Alan Dershowitz
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When I was 14 or 15, a camp counselor told me I was smart. I had never been very good in school, but he told me once that I was smart but my mind operated a little differently.
Alan Dershowitz
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Laws are important precisely because in a democracy they reflect the attitudes and aspirations of those they govern.
Alan Dershowitz
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I am attacked equally by the hard right and the hard left for expressing what they regard as politically incorrect views. I thrive on such controversy and welcome it. It only encourages me to speak out more. I have not been affected by attacks on me for defending freedom of speech and due process.
Alan Dershowitz
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If you're a prosecutor, and you believe the defendant is guilty, you only talk about ultimate truth, but not intermediate truth. If you're the defense attorney, you care deeply about intermediate truth, but you tend to neglect ultimate truth.
Alan Dershowitz
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For most people, the question why be good - as distinguished from merely law abiding - is a simple one. Because God commands it, because the Bible requires it, because good people go to Heaven and bad people go to Hell.
Alan Dershowitz
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I'm not a single-issue person, but I spend so much time on Israel because it is so unfairly condemned around the world.
Alan Dershowitz